The roll-n-cage seismic isolator

With the devastation in Haiti still fresh in our everyone’s minds a team at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) – Barcelona Tech is working on a system to better protect buildings, infrastructure and sensitive equipment from seismic activity. The roll-n-cage (RNC) is an anti-vibration device that is positioned between the building and the ground so that when the ground moves, the supported building doesn’t.

The RNC isolator is an advanced seismic isolator to be constructed using common materials such as steel and rubber. Its creators sat the RNC isolator has the potential to outperform existing isolation devices – the majority of which still have practical limitations that prevent them from working as intended, restrict their effective use, and limit the level of protection provided – under light, moderate and severe conditions.

Rather than increasing the seismic resistance capacity of structures, the device is based on the concept of reducing or mitigating seismic demand. To this end it incorporates isolation, energy dissipation, buffer and restoring force mechanisms in a single unit.